Ephara, God of the Polis - first thoughts

Noticed that no one has a decklist for this snazzy new legend, so I figured I'd crank one out. I mean, make a decklist. Shut up.

The god design is really cool but so far none of them really excite me THAT much. Most of the theros gods are pretty goodstuffy, except purphoros who is more aggro, which also doesn't interest me much. They're not even good at voltron because everything you'd want to pump them up with generally doesn't contribute to animating them.

Of the second round, there's a bit more specialization but I'm still not thrilled. Karametra is boring old ramp. Mogis is clearly not designed for EDH. Kruphix is great at a strategy that sucks and will always suck and also is boring. And Xenagos is aggro, which as I mentioned is not my favorite flavor of ice cream.

So that leaves Ephara. At first she looks sort of drab, a honden of the seeing winds as long as you're playing enough creatures. But luckily she's got one element that makes her more interesting - her ability triggers each upkeep. inb4, this ability is vastly improved in a multiplayer format. But how to exploit it?

The great part about her is that she's a very resilient draw engine, and being in WU she has both the ability to counter the odd enchantment tuck effect aimed at her and also the ability to tutor herself back to hand if the worst happens. So most of the deck can rely on her for draw, and focus on exploiting her ability and providing some control elements.

I like the premise of this deck a lot. I think Wrath of God and Day of Judgement would work really well here -- draw into them and use them to wipe the board while keeping your indestructible general around for general damage.

I like the premise of this deck a lot. I think Wrath of God and Day of Judgement would work really well here -- draw into them and use them to wipe the board while keeping your indestructible general around for general damage.

How'd the playtest go?

Weird that I happened to login just in time to notice that this got bumped. I kinda thought everyone forgot about it considering it was a few pages back.

Anyway, I got to test it at weekly EDH night and a few 1v1 games on the side at fnm, and overall impressions are that the deck needs more control, fewer draw-engine creatures. Boardwipes I didn't include a ton of because I didn't want to kill all the creatures I figured I'd have on the field, but realistically I'm usually bouncing stuff to my hand often enough that it's not a big deal, and I definitely could have used some. Also could have used some good tutors like mystical and enlightened, which I'll probably shoehorn in when I get a little more space.

Yeah - thanks for recommending me saltskitter. He isn't amazing or anything:). But I've been using trading post and loving that too. Venser is nice, letting me draw cards even when I'm out of creatures. Deadeye navigator is powerful in any blue deck, but expecially this one.

Lastly, a card that is kind of jank - angel of salvation. I've been loving it though. It usually ends up costing a lot less then 8 and between then bounce and the blink saves me from a ton of damage - acts as a kind of pillowfort and a beater.

I've been working on an Ephara build of my own, and one card that's tested well for me so far is Sacred Mesa. It's probably not as powerful as Saltskitter, but it's still pretty strong in this deck. It's also much easier to tutor for. You could probably drop some more of your cheap bounce guys for it and replace the other spots with more utility.

Mostly I realized there aren't many creatures I really want to replay for value. Venser and snappy and jack else. So the bounce looks really ugly when you're bouncing a 3 drop with a tap ability or something just so you can draw 2 cards for 5. shard and portal stay in because they've got offensive value too, but they don't get killed by the various wraths. kicked the count up on those - this decks needs a midgame control sweeper to get things under control after the beginning.

Also stuck in meddling mage as an optimistic counter to my 2 least favorite generals - prossh and maelstrom wanderer. triggers on cast that are better than the spell itself = BS.